Network-based communications provide extensive functionalities to users. For example, the Internet allows any user to operate a device and access content or communicate with other devices. The functionalities have spurred the development of many industries, among which is the online marketing industry. In particular, the online marketing industry relies greatly on network-based communications to distribute marketing materials to users.
Generally, the distribution of marketing materials, such as advertisements, occurs over a number of marketing channels. Each marketing channel represents a channel for reaching users via a particular type of communication network. For example, a web channel enables the distribution of online advertisements in web pages over the Internet. Similarly, a social media channel enables the distribution of online advertisements as posts on social media platforms over the Internet. On the other hand, a mobile channel enables the distribution of mobile advertisements to mobile and smart phones over wireless networks.
A marketer manages usage of the marketing channels through a marketing platform to maximize a desired user response. For example, the marketer selects certain marketing channels that would result in the highest possible user conversion. A user conversion occurs when a user purchases, orders, or obtains a product advertised through one or more of the marketing channels.
Hence, a user operating a computing device connected to a communication network is commonly exposed to multiple marketing channels. For example, the user receives marketing material via e-mail, mobile message, display advertising, social media and so on. All these impressions influence the decision of the user to convert or not. To maximize conversions, the marketer needs to understand how each of these marketing efforts affects the user's decision and, accordingly, optimize usage of the marketing channels. Interpreting the influence of various marketing channels to the user's decision process is called marketing attribution.
Optimizing usage of marketing channels results in many technical advantages to the marketer. In particular, usage of a marketing channel is network-centric and necessitates an allocation of network resources to the marketing channel. For example, sending a web advertisement from a head end server to a user device consumes network bandwidth along with memory and processing power of the head end server. Hence, the more optimal the marketing channel usage is, the more efficient the usage of the underlying network resources becomes.
The online marketing industry has tackled the usage optimization by implementing models for estimating the marketing attribution. A marketing channel attribution model attributes credit to a marketing channel for resulting in the desired user response. The usage of the marketing channel is managed by the marketer based on the attributed credit.
Various marketing channel attribution models are available to the marketer and are implemented within marketing platforms. The accuracy of estimating an attribution of a marketing channel varies with the applied marketing channel attribution model. For example, one model estimates the attribution more accurately than another model given a set of parameters that relate to the user exposures and user responses.
However, existing marketing platforms fail to compare the accuracies of marketing channel attribution models. The existing marketing platforms also fail to measure how accurate each model is given a relevant set of parameters. Without an evaluation of the respective accuracies, the marketer is unable to select and apply the most appropriate marketing channel attribution model. Hence, in certain situations, the attributions that the marketer uses to manage the marketing channels via an existing marketing platform are not the most accurate. This ultimately leads to a sub-optimal use of the underlying network resources.